Hello wonderful friend.
Thank you for being with me on this human journey.
Thank you for being by my side as we’ve been navigating this pandemic together. I started making these Sunday LoveGrams in March of 2020. And here we are, still walking each other home. (Thank you for that quote, Ram Dass!)
Thank you for being someone who shows up for yourself and for everything life offers.
I appreciate you. I believe in you.
I trust your ability to find the goodness, even when things are hard.
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Today, I send you the feel of your grandfather’s hand on your shoulder.
I send you the memory of someone you really love who passed away, but whose laughter still echoes in your mind and makes you smile.
I send you the scent of perfume, just the same one your sweet auntie used to wear, and how it makes you remember her warm home and crocheted doilies.
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Today’s LoveGram is in honor of World Kindness Day, which was yesterday.
It is also in celebration of the Secret Agents of Change, a group of wonderful folks who spread surreptitious kindness.
(To listen to the audio, just scroll down on this page and click play on the audio player below!)
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Two weeks ago, when you received my LoveGram, I was flying to Colorado to visit my dear friend, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
While I was there, we got to host a special Day of the Dead mission for our Secret Agents of Change. (Rosemerry and I started this group together a few years ago.)
I want to share some ideas that came out of that mission. I think they will touch your heart.
More importantly, I’m hoping you will be inspired to share an act of kindness in honor of someone you love. (If you’ve already participated in this kindness mission, I challenge you to think of someone else to honor and try it again!)
Ready to do this? (I hope so!)
Scroll down below my signature and you can read the poem that our mission was based on.
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Here is your prompt:
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Create an act of kindness in someone’s name who has passed away. What did that person value? What brought them joy? What is something that would make them really happy if they knew you were doing this in their name? What would feel like an honoring of that person?
Double Secret Agent Mission: Create an audio note for them or write them a letter to tell them about your kindness. You can also write them a poem, or stand and whisper it. Or use a “phone of the wind.” (Google that phrase.)Watch to see how connecting this feels.
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Here are a few kindness acts, some of our Secret Agents carried out earlier this month:
- Her dad loved two things: playing cards around a table with family and eating ice-cream. She honored him by donating a bunch of decks of cards to the local Ronald McDonald House and also buying ice-cream gift certificates that the shop clerk could surprise people with throughout the day.
- His childhood friend who passed away at a very young age, dreamed of a simple life driving trucks for a living. So, our Secret Agent honored his friend by leaving some gift cards in envelopes on top of the trash cans on pick-up day so that the drivers of the collection trucks would find these kind surprises.
- Her brother, who took his life several years ago, loved rhubarb pie. He once made a special one for her to celebrate her. In his honor, she chose to serve rhubarb pie and share loving memories of him.
- My mom participated in this mission! Her own mother was diligent in caring for the graves of people she loved, especially her mom and husband — my mother’s grandmother and father. So, for this kindness mission, my mom took some plants to the cemetery and left them on graves that seemed as if they were uncared for and didn’t have loving visitors.
- I’m honoring my father, who passed away earlier this year, by sending anonymous money to someone I know who is saving up for a trip to her family’s birthplace. My dad was not much of a family man at all — he didn’t seem to want to be tied down — so, this is a way to pay tribute to him even though we were never close.
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Happy day-after World Kindness Day. I hope you choose to offer kindness in the name of someone you love who has passed away.
And, if YOU are are need of kindness today, please accept this long-distance hug from me. Please be extra kind to yourself and perhaps surprise yourself somehow with truckloads of compassion and understanding. (If that is hard to do, pretend it is coming me from me!)
Seek celebration — even in dark corners,
xo Sherry
P.S. Google the phrase, “phone of the wind.” Here’s one story.
P.P.S. Join the Secret Agents of Change by signing up for our mailing list. Or joining the Facebook group.
P.P.P.S. Here’s Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem. (Copyright)